2023-06-09
2460
#css
Hamsa Harcourt
84343
Jun 9, 2023 â‹… 8 min read

Guide to removing unused CSS code with PurgeCSS

Hamsa Harcourt I'm Hamsa, a software engineer with a strong passion for building human-centric products. I love teaching concepts about JavaScript and the web at large.

Recent posts:

Build A React AI Image Generator With Hugging Face Diffusers

Build a React AI image generator with Hugging Face Diffusers

Build a React-based AI image generator app offline using the Hugging Face Diffusers library and Stable Diffusion XL.

Andrew Baisden
May 29, 2025 â‹… 10 min read
Gemini 2.5 and the future of AI reasoning for frontend devs

Gemini 2.5 and the future of AI reasoning for frontend devs

Get up to speed on Google’s latest breakthrough with the Gemini 2.5 model and what it means for the future of frontend AI tools.

Chizaram Ken
May 29, 2025 â‹… 5 min read
Exploring The Top Rust Web Frameworks

Exploring the top Rust web frameworks

In this article, we’ll explore the best Rust frameworks for web development, including Actix Web, Rocket, Axum, warp, Leptos, Cot, and Loco.

Abiodun Solomon
May 28, 2025 â‹… 11 min read
How To Use The CSS Cursor Property

How to use the CSS cursor property

A single line of CSS can change how users feel about your UI. Learn how to leverage the cursor property to signal intent, improve interaction flow, and elevate accessibility.

Chizaram Ken
May 28, 2025 â‹… 6 min read
View all posts

7 Replies to "Guide to removing unused CSS code with PurgeCSS"

    1. Keep in mind that PurgeCSS doesn’t touch your source CSS files, just the ones that are output by the build process. So if you add new code that needs CSS rules that were previously purged, then the next time you build your app PurgeCSS will see that your code is using some new rules and will not purge them in that build.

  1. In frameworks such as Angular, you can use scss which is complied down to css. Is there any way to achieve this on scss?

    1. It doesn’t make sense to run it on SCSS because other SCSS files might be referencing your code dynamically elsewhere. You can transpile it to CSS, then run the process on CSS as part of your CI pipeline or have a local git hook to do so. It has the same effect.

  2. So how do you use this on a standard static HTML website? What if someone does not use any javascript or php frameworks?

Leave a Reply